Upload
millicent-gardner
View
218
Download
0
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
April 7, 2009agenda
Order of events
Small group work on final paper Marvelous oral report Glances: Vikings video and DVD sections Common themes: Gwyn Jones Thorstein, Saga-techniques and
narratology; Roland and group analysis Quiz
Gwyn Jones (1972) Kings Beasts & Heroes
Looks at 3 works: Beowulf, Culhwch and Olwen, and Hrolfssaga
Composed between 8th and 11th century, set in the 6th century, and all concerning Denmark, Geatland Norway, Sweden, and Britain (the Welsh tale)
All associated with heroic legend – a hero tale “accredited to a known and named hero belonging in the early traditions of a tribe, people, country or race” as opposed to a wondertale/folktale
Jones on Beowulf as heroic poem
“a non-divine hero of wondertale descent associated closely, constantly, and prolongedly with the antecedents of northern tribal history …fight[s] to the death a destructive but conventional and nonapocalyptic foe”
Textual metamorphosis
“one kind of tale and telling can become something else: wondertale becoming heroic legend, heroic legend entering the realm of legendary history, and the attachment of floating story-material to a named hero in a known geographical setting….by such process the wondertale as it were, grows up, acquires morality and a social purpose”
Different shades of ‘historical’
Reality – and then there is Historical tradition Legendary history (associates
legendary event with name discoverable in historical tradition)
Heroic legend International popular tale wondertale
Hunters with beasts
Mighty themes: perfect for epics, heroic legends, historical traditions
Hunting the bear
The whale
The boar
The lion
Categories of sagas
Historical sagas: Kings’ lives; Bishops’ sagas
Sagas of Icelanders: Sturlunga saga
Sagas of Olden Times: Volsungasaga and knightly romances
Thorstein….
Thorstein
3 good questions in the Norton Intro, p 1777
What purposes are served by the dialogue?
What is Thorarin’s motive for each of his acts?
How are the two women used as characters?
The Song of Roland
778 ADThe Song of Roland is an anonymous French epic concerning a legendary battle which took place in the valley of Roncesvaux in the Pyrenees in 778 AD and written down much later
1066 AD At Hastings, in 1066, Taillefer the Jongleur is said to have gone before the army, flinging his sword in the air and singing stirring stanzas from the Song of Roland …This is recorded by several medieval writers
Working with Roland
Cultural implications of the period
Notice, p 1705 Norton, how the editors justify their claim that Roland is based on oral tradition
Stanzas for small groups: 87, 92; 128-31; 146-51; 173-6; 276-280
Useful links
http://www.oe.eclipse.co.uk/nom/sagas.htm
Good intro only http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/index2.html
http://www.sjolander.com/viking/museum/bt/bt.htm
http://www.geocities.com/profviano/medieval/4roland.html